[1] When Almighty God, for the merits of His Son, not of any ireful mind, but of a loving heart towards us, doth correct and punish us, He may be likened unto a father; as the natural father first teacheth his dear beloved child, and afterwards giveth him warning, and then correcteth him at last, even so the Eternal God assayeth all manner of ways with us. First He teacheth us His will through the preaching of His Word, and giveth us warning. Now if so be that we will not follow Him, then He beateth us a little with a rod, with poverty, sickness, or with other afflictions, which should be esteemed as nothing else but children's rods, or the wands of correction. If such a rod will not do any good, and his son waxeth stubborn, then taketh the father a whip or a stick, and beateth him till his bones crack; even so, when we wax obstinate, and care neither for words nor stripes, then sendeth God unto us more heavy and universal plagues. All this He doth to drive us unto repentance and amendment of our lives. Now truth it is, that it is against the father's will to strike his child; he would much rather do him all the good that ever he could. Even so certainly, when God sendeth affliction upon our necks, there lieth hidden under that rod a fatherly affection. For the peculiar and natural property of God is to be loving and friendly, to heal, to help, and to do good to His children, mankind.--_Wermullerus,_ 1551. The surgeon must cut away the rotten and the dead flesh, that the whole body be not poisoned, and so perish; even so doth God sometimes plague our bodies grievously, that our souls may be preserved and healed. How deep soever God thrusteth His iron into our flesh, He doeth it only to heal us; and if it be so that He kill us, then will He bring us to the right life. The physician employeth one poison to drive out another; even so God in correcting us useth the devil and wicked people, but yet all to do us good.--_Wermullerus,_ 1551. [2] Sorrow is in itself a thing neither good nor bad; its value depends on the spirit of the person on whom it falls. Fire will inflame straw, soften iron, or harden clay; its effects are determined by the object with which it comes in contact. Warmth develops the energies of life, or helps the progress of decay. It is a great power in the hothouse, a great power also in the coffin; it expands the leaf, matures the fruit, adds precocious vigour to vegetable life; and warmth, too, develops with tenfold rapidity the weltering process of dissolution. So, too, with sorrow. There are spirits in which it develops the seminal principle of life; there are others in which it prematurely hastens the consummation of irreparable decay.--_F. W. Robertson._